Ian K. Steele has again produced one of the most important and deeply researched works on eighteenth-century European-Indian relations. Setting All the Captives Free is by no means a narrow study of captivity. Rather, Steele places captives “at the center” of a broader narrative of the Seven Years’ War in America usually driven by battles, sieges, diplomacy, and influential leaders (3). As his title suggests, Steele investigates literally all the captives—French Canadian, Indian, and British—who were taken between 1745 and 1765 in the Allegheny Country, which he roughly defines as a two-hundred-mile radius from Pittsburgh. Of the 6,131 people killed or captured in those two decades, 3,343 were killed and 2,788 were captured (xiv). Interestingly, only one Native warrior was ever captured in arms by the British army (73). Steele’s prodigious 112-page appendix, with capsule sketches of the 1,709 captives known by name, is destined to become an indispensable reference...
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July 1, 2016
